


Chimes

by CatLovePower



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Gen, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Sort Of, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: The dead just won’t stay dead anymore. At first it sounds like a business opportunity for the witcher, but as more and more corpses start walking, Geralt is forced to admit the situation might be irreversible.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59





	Chimes

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody:
> 
> Me: A Zombie AU where everything is exactly the same but there are zombies. Also Geraskier is endgame but romance is hard and they’re pining idiots.

Geralt hated Novigrad – gangs and drunks and suspicious guards on every corner – and so he was taking his sweet time going there. Jaskier’s ‘very important’ bardic competition could start without him. 

He took several contracts on the way, a wraith haunting a windmill, a rotfiend nest, several drowners near the Pontar. But the closer he got to the northern city, the more bizarre the notices became.

‘Help wanted. Grandpa won’t stay dead. Bring your own shovel.’

‘If caught, grave-robbers will be hanged. You have been warned.’

‘Witcher needed. Ghouls?’

The last one was puzzling – poor folks in these parts usually recognized necrophages pretty easily, but that question mark seemed to indicate something else was afoot. He snatched the torn page from the wood panel and headed towards the local tavern.

He rarely ever got warm greetings these days, with the whole two swords, black armor and yellow eyes look, but this time the young man behind the counter seemed absolutely relieved to see him come in. His eyes lit and he served him something to drink without being asked to. 

The place was near empty, the only customers being a man, passed out in a booth, and an old woman talking to herself, her nose in her tankard. 

“Witcher! You’re a sight for sore eyes!” The barkeep looked like he could hug him. “Are you here about the contract? I could really use your help…” 

The old woman threw them a look and started cackling. 

“Care to explain your ghoul problem?” Geralt suggested, taking a sip of his ale – too warm, not enough frost. 

The barkeep made a face and stuttered, “It’s not… I don’t have…”

“Not a ghoul then?” Geralt tried again, frowning. It wasn’t like those creatures were rare, they prowled around cemeteries and unmarked graves, and every village had to deal with them from time to time. It didn’t justify such a fuss. 

“I’m no expert,” the young man said, “but I’m pretty sure they’re not ghouls.” 

“Those ‘not ghouls, plural’ – where did you last see them?” Geralt said slowly, thinking he should secure a fee first because that sounded like a headache-inducing contract.

“Not...” the barkeep started again, but he got interrupted by a deep, guttural growl that resonated behind them.

The old kook pointed a bony finger and said, “He’s awake!”

Geralt briefly hesitated on which sword to grab, because it didn’t sound human, but he was pretty sure it came from the drunk man sitting in the dark. His silver sword went right through his skull, stopping the… not ghoul dead in its tracks. It looked like a man, but stank like death. 

“And you say there are more?” Geralt asked the barkeep in an even tone, wiping his sword on his thigh. The young man nodded frantically with a hallucinated gaze, and led him outside.

It turned out he had managed to gather a lot of his former customers in a barn. They were groaning inside, scrapping at the wood like angry beasts trying to escape. Geralt opened the doors and quickly dispatched them. They were slow and unsteady, and the witcher couldn’t see any mutations or deformities you would expect to see on ghouls. 

They were humans, and dead, and walking.

*

He reached Novigrad two days later by sundown, tired to be on foot but glad he left Roach in a safe place. Farcorners was a ghost town, but he could see lights behind closed shutters, and people watching him from the relative safety of their houses. Whispering. It should have felt familiar, but now it was just ominous.

The bridge leading to the city was unguarded, which happened all the time because the guards were lazy fucks, but that night it just didn’t bode well. The stench of death was just too strong, overpowering, everywhere. Whatever weird affliction had swept through the villages had also touched the city. 

He was now faced with a challenge: figure out where Jaskier would have gone after the dead started walking. The safest would have been escaping from the city, because the reanimated corpses seemed to be able to infect other humans with a bite. But the poet was a social creature and a city dweller; running to the woods was a witcher reaction. Jaskier would have probably sought protection in the richest part of town, maybe even on Temple Isle if he was smart. Safety in numbers – baring no one was infected or about to croak. 

Geralt heard shuffling behind him, and put his hand on the pommel of his steel sword. No reason to dull the silver blade, since the dead were humans in nature, and not vulnerable to any of the oils or potions he tried. 

The groans were faint, as if the thing was weak, but it was still coming for him. Tired and hungry, walking on stumps, blind and rotting inside out. It crumpled to the ground after a single clean strike, head rolling away, detached from the body, but more were coming behind it, a lot more.

It was strange to hear his own footsteps in the Bits; even late at night, the place was usually bursting with sound and animation. And now even with his witcher senses, all he could hear was shuffling further down, and some people quietly crying upstairs. 

He made his way to the square, where the Eternal Flame was still lit, but there was no hooded priest sputtering nonsense next to it. Even moving silently and carefully, he could tell the dead horde had heard him, as they all started converging towards his position. He needed to move and fast.

The thought that Jaskier could be dead as well, walking among them, crossed his mind, but he quickly pushed it away. The bard was too annoying and resilient to die that stupidly. He was good at haggling and making friends, he probably talked his way into a group of survivors.

*

In a narrow street going north, Geralt heard a faint noise above and raised his head, puzzled by what he saw up there. A dark silhouette was standing on the narrow balcony, probably coming out of the open window, and was trying to get on the roof. It had started raining earlier, and everything was wet. The man slipped with a muffled curse and barely caught himself on the ledge. 

When he looked down, probably to check if he could jump safely, Geralt recognized him and stopped with a start. 

“Jaskier!?” 

“Oh, it’s you,” the bard said, and he let go of the balcony.

It happened in a fraction of second, and Geralt could only thank his fast reflexes. He caught the dangling idiot, and the weirdly shaped lute that plummeted with him.

He put his burden down, and the poet staggered slightly but remained upright, eyes bright and a huge smile on his dirty face. 

“Geralt!” he exclaimed, before hugging the witcher tightly.

He looked good, all things considering, doublet torn in places and trousers scrapped at the knee. Moving through the city using the roofs wasn’t a bad idea, just a dangerous one with the current weather.

“That’s not your lute,” Geralt said, looking at the strange instrument Jaskier snatched back. It looked smaller, with a longer neck. 

“Pretty observant, my dear witcher. This is a gudok, it’s pretty rare and expensive, so I’m grateful you didn’t drop it.”

“Are you aware there is a curse on the city?” Geralt remarked. Looting stuff and doing stunts was a weird activity for the time being, in his opinion.

“Yeah, yeah. Be quiet, will you.” It was rich coming from him, but it made sense. The dead were attracted by noise, and the scuffle was bound to attract them here. He pushed Jaskier towards a dark alley-way, lowering his voice.

“What were you even doing up there?” 

“Didn’t you hear me? It’s expensive and rare. I had to get it,” he whispered back, and Geralt couldn’t tell if he was joking or dead serious. Bards’ priorities would always be a mystery to the witcher, so he just shook his head.

He let Jaskier take the lead, bringing them back to the southern part of the city. The poet stopped a few times, listening carefully. Geralt let him do so without commenting; he could hear the horde himself, far enough not to be a concern. Jaskier had a bow strapped to his back, probably to play that tiny lute of his, and a cutlass looped into his belt. His readiness was unusual, but Geralt appreciated it.

He brought them to the Crippled Kate’s, of all places, and rapped his knuckles against the backdoor, in a quick succession which sounded like some sort of code. A woman opened, armed to the teeth and not wearing a lot of clothing; one of the prostitutes of that fine establishment, Geralt gathered.

*

The inside of the brothel was pretty gloomy, with all the planks nailed to the windows, but the girls were in good spirits and happy to see ‘a friend of the famous Master Jaskier.’ It was sweet to see how well the poet fit in that raggedy band.

“At first,” Jaskier explained, once they settled around a candle, “folks thought it might have been a bad batch of fisstech with a wacky side effect. But then it started affecting everyone, even priests, and I have never known a priest to take a line of the White Death. “

Geralt grunted and shrugged, meaning he didn’t know enough Eternal Fire priests or fisstech users to be the judge of that, and he just let Jaskier talk.

“We decided to hole up at the Kingfisher Inn, you know, be among friends, maybe carry on with the competition and wait for it to blow over.” 

He smiled weakly at the memory. 

“I take it didn’t go well?” Geralt offered.

“Worse than you can imagine. People panicked, argued and fought. Thugs tried to attack the place…” 

“And so now you live in a brothel and loot impractical musical instruments from abandoned houses?” Geralt concluded with an amused expression.

Jaskier had the decency to look sheepish. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers twitching, and sighed.

“But I talk, I talk… Pray tell, witcher, what’s your professional opinion of the situation?” 

“I have no fucking clue,” Geralt confessed with a growl.

“So we’re truly fucked, aren’t we?” Jaskier laughed, but there was no joy in it. He sounded tired and frayed.

“You’re taking the news pretty well,” Geralt remarked anyway. He would have expected the poet to freak out a little bit more. “Are you high?” 

“Why are you here if you can’t help?” Jaskier asked, avoiding the question and looking at the board up window, as if he heard something coming – the horde was far enough now, roaming north. 

“I came to rescue you,” Geralt said lamely, suddenly unsure of his course of action. 

“Oh good gods, thank you. Let’s get out of here. I don’t think I can stand the stench or the moans any longer. And the way they try to claw their way in at night? Urg!” A shudder wracked his body and he brushed his dirty doublet with fluttering fingers. “Wait, how did you find me?” Suspicion rose in his voice, and he narrowed his eyes on Geralt. “Did Cleaver send you? I’m not going back…”

“Jaskier, you’re not making any sense,” Geralt said, keeping his voice low. He put a reassuring hand over the bard’s on the table, because he looked ready to bolt all of a sudden. Definitively high then. “What did you take?” 

“Needed to be fast. Needed to avoid sleep,” Jaskier mumbled. 

“To run from gangs and steal lutes?” 

“It’s a gudok,” Jaskier corrected with a weary smile. 

“When did you last eat or sleep?”

The silence and the vacant stare were an answer in itself. 

*

They were running low on food, but with some coaxing from the madam and a doe-eyed girl called Mercia, Jaskier accepted to grab something to eat, before falling asleep on the spot, his head on his arms, sandwiched between Geralt and a busty girl called Bertha. 

“Are you really here to save us?” she asked in a low voice, careful not to wake the poet. “Jaskier spoke highly of you,” she added, and Geralt knew she wasn’t only talking about his songs.

“Where is everyone?” Geralt said instead. “Did they flee the city?” 

“Let’s see,” Bertha said with a frown. “The rich fled, the poor are slowly dying. Nothing new here. Menge is dead, pushed off a cliff actually. Most of the Temple guards deserted or got bit. Some priests burned themselves, it was very nasty.” She flashed a smile and teased, “But how’s the witcher business going?” 

“Not that great,” Geralt said matter-of-factly. “Too many contracts, not enough people left to pay.” 

He didn’t ask what happened with Cleaver, or how Jaskier ended up here. He didn’t promise anything foolish either, that was the poet’s job. Admiration and hope was clear in their eyes, but he wasn’t sure he was up for the task. 

*

“Alright girls, outside these walls, you’re not strumpets anymore,” Jaskier said, his voice shrill with enthusiasm. He still looked manic and exhausted, but at least he wasn’t spilling doubts and accusations like last night.

The plan, if one could call that a plan, was to get their little band out of the city and to a safer place. The moans at night were truly horrifying, and that was coming from someone who dealt with monsters for a living. They couldn’t stay there, they were already running out of food, and the streets would only get more and more dangerous.

Jaskier made them change clothes, and that was actually good thinking. Geralt trusted the soldiers he met on the outskirts of the city enough to leave them Roach, but not to behave around prostitutes during a reanimating plague. There were five of them, a group small enough for Geralt to hope to get them all safely out.

But of course things went awry as soon as morning came and they stepped out. The horde had moved away, but some stragglers were still staggering around. Their eyes were dead, unseeing, but their hearing was clearly intact – maybe they used echolocation, maybe it was a new kind of mutation. In any case, they knew when to attack. 

The alley-way was narrow, too narrow to fight and protect, to keep an eye on everyone. Jaskier proved surprisingly good with his cutlass, but he was still clumsy because of the two lutes strapped to his back. Silly bard, who placed music above survival. The blade got stuck into a dead skull, and he wrenched it back, overbalanced and fell against the wall with a discordant twang.

The ensuing confusion cost them the shy girl whose name Geralt hadn’t even learned. A dead fisherman tore through her neck with his human teeth. Blood gushed everywhere and Geralt ran a sword through both of their skulls, while everyone was screaming. It was a mess, a dangerous mess. 

They ran on slippery, uneven cobblestones, past the empty post guards on a southern bridge. They ran some more until the witcher knew his human companions couldn’t run anymore. Jaskier flat out refused his help when he offered to carry one of the lutes, mumbling something about fragile wood and rough witcher hands. He probably deserved the jab.

The countryside was oddly quiet, and nothing monstrous was waiting for them in the fields. They reached the ruins of Drahim castle under a sizzling rain, and Geralt hoped the Redanian soldiers guarding it wouldn’t shoot them on sight, as they looked half dead like the beasts slowly following them. At least they had yet to come across a fast-moving corpse. 

But the soldiers let them in without a fuss, happy to see new faces – sweet, feminine ones. They talked excitedly, boasting and bragging like kids. And that’s what they were, mostly. Kids without a leader, forced to improvise and settle in the damp and drafty stronghold. 

*

Nobody talked about the dead girl. They probably didn’t even blame Geralt. He was still strong and mighty, offering protection and a way out, even though he had failed one of them already. Jaskier looked miserable, huddling next to the fire on the top floor of the tower, his lutes close by, untouched. Even here, noise was a concern, and he probably didn’t want to try their luck and get himself thrown out the first night. 

The Redanian shared their rations – they had plenty, as deaths and desertions had thinned their ranks. The booze was good, lifting up spirits for the night. 

“Mages will save us,” one the soldiers said, passing the bottle around. “I’m sure they’re working on a magical cure.” 

“They’re doing fuck all. More like hiding in their shiny towers and turning the blind eye,” another laughed. He stroked his patchy beard and coughed. “Magic users are nothing but scum.” 

“You won’t say that once they save us all,” the younger one insisted. 

Geralt thought about Yennefer and wondered if it was true, or if she was locked up somewhere, waiting for the curse to pass. The fact that he hadn’t found a way to turn them back or stop them, other than destroying the brain or severing the spinal cord, didn’t mean there wasn’t any to be found.

“What about Oxenfurt?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt nodded silently; it was a good place, easily defensible, if it hasn’t been overrun already.

“I heard they locked the city very early on. They aren’t letting anyone in.”

“Even bards?” Jaskier squeaked. He blinked, fingers twitching, and Geralt intercepted the bottle before he could take a swig. The bard glared at him but didn’t argue.

“Especially bards,” the soldier guffawed. “Good for nothing lazy fucks, they don’t need more of those!” 

Something akin to hurt flashed in Jaskier’s blue eyes, and he gripped his bow tightly. Geralt put a placating hand on his knee, preventing him from getting into a petty fight. He begrudgingly relented and got up to join the women instead, eliciting a few more degrading comments from the soldiers.

Geralt growled, doing his best scary witcher face, and the men finally let it go, arguing about the rye and the rain instead. 

*

The soldiers had a rotating system of chores, and everyone tried to fit in as best they could, even the reluctant bard. He was good at scavenging food from nearby houses and abandoned crates. Geralt wasn’t sure how he felt about seeing him so serious and silent all the time. It made him look older, somehow.

At night, the soldiers partied. Some fucked. Most drank themselves silly. The dead couldn’t climb the tower, and all they had to do was remove the ladders and make sure not to attract too many walkers, as they called them.

By now they knew that bites took about two days to become infected. And that there was really no telling when the illness would kill the person before reanimating them, a hungry shell of their former self.

Geralt patrolled outside, or he meditated upstairs. He didn’t fit in, and nobody was trying to make him feel like he belonged. Witchers were not domestic creatures, they were weapons, made to roam and kill. He was still an asset, so nobody told him anything, even when he growled and paced like a caged wolf.

That night, Geralt was trying really hard to meditate, but the noise was making it difficult. He never had that sort of problem when he slept in the woods. Even in a crappy inn, it was easier to ignore his neighbors’ activities. Downstairs, the soldiers were drinking and cackling; upstairs, Jaskier was getting lucky with one of the former prostitutes. Trapped in between, Geralt was bored and annoyed – but certainly not jealous of a sad looking prostitute having a little fun with his bard. 

If he concentrated, he could hear the soft thump of Jaskier’s heart, the rustle of the bedrolls, the kisses and the giggles. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something else, anything.

A scream tore through the night, coming from somewhere below, then another. “Get him off me!” someone yelled, and Geralt got to his feet, sword at the ready. 

Something heavy fell on the floor upstairs, and he could hear Jaskier asking Mercia if she was alright. Geralt knew he had to make a choice, and that his decision would seal the fate of many people, but he didn’t even hesitate. He pulled the ladder and climbed up.

The witcher got a little mad at the sight which greeted him on the last floor of the tower. Mercia was writhing on the floor, eyes rolled back, showing nothing but white. Jaskier was kneeling next to her, trying to hold her, as if he was worried she would hit her head seizing on the floor. As if there was nothing left to hurt in that head of hers. 

“Jaskier, stand back.”

“She’s not… she’s…” Jaskier stammered, at a loss of words for once. His eyes were huge, his expression torn. He knew what Geralt had to do, but he couldn’t accept it.

Mercia turned while they were arguing like fools. Next thing they knew, she sprang up and jumped on Jaskier, knocking him back on the floor. She tried to bite him, straddling his thighs in a parody of their earlier activities. 

Geralt dropped the girl with a swift blow, knocking her head sideways, before piercing the occipital bone from behind. She fell on top of a squirming Jaskier, spraying hot blood everywhere. She hadn’t been dead long enough for her heart to stop pumping.

He pushed her and frantically started looking for a cut or a bite, until Jaskier stopped him. He slapped his hands away and snapped, “I’m alright, she didn’t bite me.” 

They stayed like that for a few moments, breathing hard, half sitting, half kneeling in a puddle of blood. Jaskier’s clothes had looked bad before, but now they were beyond saving. The poet started rubbing his skin, until Geralt grabbed his hand to stop him. ‘What now?’ the big blue eyes seemed to ask, but Jaskier didn’t utter a word.

The screams got awful, down below, and Geralt quickly helped Jaskier to his feet. 

“Not a sound. Follow me.” 

*

Maybe Mercia wasn’t the only sick one of the group, or maybe the ruckus drew so many dead that they started piling at the foot of the tower, until they managed to breach the first floor. There was no way they were getting out from inside, Geralt quickly realized. Which left them with the bad option they were currently facing, standing on the narrow balcony in the wind.

“Do you trust me?” he asked Jaskier.

“Do I have a choice?” The poet was looking at the ground, dark hair – damp with sweat or blood – obscuring his face.

“No. Jump.” 

And Jaskier did, plummeting blindly into a patch of soft, muddy soil. He twisted his ankle and stifled a painful yelp, but quickly got to his feet. It hurt to see him so strong and so stoic; it wasn’t normal, nothing about that was normal. They should have headed to the woods long ago, it was stupid to trust any humans. 

Geralt jumped as well and pushed Jaskier towards the stable – walkers didn’t touch animals, but the horses were still nervous as hell, ears flicking to listen to the screams and groans. He hauled Jaskier in the saddle and gave him back the cutlass he stupidly left behind. 

“My lute,” Jaskier whispered, but he got no time to try and do anything stupid, like running back into the carnage to salvage musical instruments.

Geralt slapped Roach’s rump and she fled to the west, into the dark of the night. Then he put Axii on a grey gelding and quickly mounted it, disregarding the lack of saddle. The tower of the castle was burning in his back, but he didn’t turn to check if anyone made it out alive. The dying screams weren’t a very good sign anyway.

*

Finding Roach in the thick woods was easy enough for the witcher, despite the drizzle and the obscurity. But Jaskier must be blind and cold, probably scared shitless if he had an ounce of self-preservation – which wasn’t a given. Geralt certainly wasn’t expecting Jaskier to be sitting next to Roach in a small clearing, uselessly hitting a flintstone with his cutlass over some way too wet kindling. 

A branch cracked under his foot, and Jaskier turned his head in his direction, sagging in relief when he recognized him. 

“Some help would be appreciated.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt said, not liking the tremors that ran through the bard’s frame. Cold or shock – whatever it was, it made his voice rough and unpleasant.

“What? Not a good spot?”

“Jaskier, I’m sorry about the girls,” Geralt said. 

“Just light the damn fire!” Jaskier erupted, way too loud.

Geralt complied, and the flames soon danced in front of them, not unlike the ones that engulfed Drahim castle. Jaskier got to his feet and rummaged through Roach’s saddlebags, getting trinkets and empty vials out, throwing them on the ground carelessly. 

“What are you doing?” 

“We need wire or cord…” Jaskier sucked in a breath. “We need nails and…”

“Just stop, Jaskier, stop!” Geralt tried to get his attention, grabbing a shoulder, but Jaskier shook him off. “We need to talk.” 

“You don’t talk.” Jaskier turned to face him, letting everything he was holding fall to the ground. “You bottle everything up, and I never know what you’re thinking. People are dead, Geralt, and you didn’t do anything to save them.”

‘I saved you,’ Geralt thought, but he stayed silent. 

“I guess you’re stuck with me now,” Jaskier said in a dejected whisper, like it was the worst thing in the world.

Tears brought on by exhaustion and frustration started rolling down his dirty face. Geralt had expected a meltdown, but now that it was happening in front of him, he didn’t know what to do about it. Part of him wanted to yell. To tell him to man up, to shut up, to carry on because crying wouldn’t change anything.

But the other part, the one that slowly grew accustomed to all those little things that made the bard so interesting – and annoying and frustrating – that other part just wanted to lie and tell him that everything would be alright. That he would sing again.

“I’m sorry…” Geralt finally said, rather lamely.

“I’m just a good for nothing bard,” Jaskier sniffled at the same time, not making eye contact. “I’m sure you’d rather be on your own, or with Yennefer right now. You should leave me here.” 

“You don’t mean that.” 

“I don’t need you anyway,” Jaskier said. “Why did you come for me? Why are you helping me?” 

He bent over and started picking up all the objects strewn on the ground. He looped a string around the vials and the nails and they all started clinking and tinkling with the jolting movements. Geralt said nothing and watched him work from the corner of his eye, as he untacked Roach’s saddle.

With nimble fingers, Jaskier tied knots, brow furrowed as he created wind chimes of sorts. The string, loaded with bits and pieces, went over a tree, and another, until it formed a wide triangle around them. At knee length, any walker was bound to trip over it and the sound would alert them. It was smart and practical, making it easier for Geralt to relax if he didn’t have to strain his senses to catch any nearby movement.

“Because you’re important,” Geralt mumbled as he sat down next to the fire, feeding it wet wood that sparkled and sizzled with a hiss.

Jaskier fretted some more, but finally sat down next to him, tugging on his doublet sleeves as if it could protect him against the cold of the night. Maybe they’d go back to the city to scavenge warmer clothes, or maybe Geralt would hunt a bear and make a coat out of his hide. For now he looped an arm around Jaskier’s shoulders and drew him close. 

“I think you’re the first person to ever tell me that.” 

“I mean it.” 

“I know.” 

*

Life got quiet and boring in the dark woods. It stopped raining, and they found patches of berries and a small creek where the water was crystal clear. Maybe the dead were scaring the monsters away, or maybe they just got lucky, but they didn’t even have to deal with any other creatures.

Jaskier talked about going back to Novigrad, see how it was faring. Until they saw the fires from over the treeline in the north. Either the priests were back in business, burning people at the stake, or the city was devolving into a fiery chaos. 

And then it happened. A mistake so stupid Geralt couldn’t believe it at first; he got careless, more focused on the doe he was hunting than on the dead hunting them. Adrenaline masked the pain at first, but reality quickly sank in, as he twirled his sword to decapitate the walker that had sneaked up on him. Warm blood was running down his shoulder blade, and he was pretty sure he could see the bone through the torn mess of flesh in his neck.

He came back to the camp empty-handed and sat down heavily on a log. Then he put the tip of his sword into the burning embers of last night fire, waiting for it to turn white hot.

“I’ve been bitten. Stay away,” he told Jaskier through clenched teeth.

The poet quickly grabbed his cutlass, his jaw set – as if he would have been strong enough to use it to cut through a limb anyway. 

“It’s no use,” Geralt said. 

He pulled on his shirt to expose the deep gash in his clavicle, way above his shoulder joint. A human would have already died from such a wound. Jaskier gasped and tried to get in his face, hands everywhere, so close and so alive, and Geralt had to push him away, until he fell backwards. 

“Stay the fuck away from me before…” He choked on the rest of the sentence. 

Jaskier looked up with tear-brimmed eyes but wordlessly complied. He stayed down when Geralt pressed the blade to his wound, nearly biting through his tongue as he tried not to scream at the unfairness of it all. He didn’t say a word as Geralt packed a few things and stepped over the chimes, not even turning back to say goodbye.

“Don’t follow me,” the witcher said. 

*

But Jaskier did. Geralt could smell him, hear him. So close, yet out of reach, hidden. Disobeying like he always did, incapable of staying put where he was relatively safe. Following the monster until the bitter end.

Geralt pumped himself full of potions, hoping to slow down the disease that was likely spreading through his bloodstream by now. Maybe he could reverse the process, if mutagens would allow.

It got even worse, as he could hear every single noise in the damn forest. He lay wide awake on his bedroll, letting the cold seep into him, awaiting death and what came next. He listened to Jaskier move quietly through the woods, putting chimes in a wide circle around him. A useless waste of resources.

He could hear the rapid thumping of the poet’s heart, somewhere on his left – had he always been able to hear his blood pumping so loudly, so clearly? He could smell the absence of fear, and the fierce determination not to abandon him. It was reckless, like pretty much all of what Jaskier did.

Geralt tried to tell himself that the bard probably just didn’t know where to go, couldn’t survive on his own. Or maybe he was waiting for him to wake up, dead and unseeing, so that he could finish him and bury him. He should have told him to go away. He should have run the blade through his own skull to spare him the heartache. But deep down, he didn’t want it to be over. 

*

On the third day, he woke up and the world around him was unchanged. Birds were chirping in the trees, the dead were staggering in the distance, and Jaskier was snoring nearby. 

*

Geralt rolled his shoulder a few times, testing the muscle. He didn’t feel any different than before, but he kept expecting something to go wrong, something to be weird. The wound had scabbed over but he could still see melted flesh and the rough outline of jagged teeth marks.

“It’s ugly,” he said as he finished washing away several days of fevered haze spent laying in the dirt, awaiting death that never came. 

“Eh, it’s alright,” Jaskier said without actually looking. “Not worse than the rest.”

Geralt wasn’t sure if he meant what he just said. Was it supposed to be comforting? After all, it was true that he was covered in scars, some older than the bard himself. It hurt somehow. His skin suddenly felt too tight, and he pictured a beast, trapped in a human body. A monster, dead and not even reborn. 

Jaskier’s hand brushed his bare arm, hot like a branding iron, and yet soothing, placating. 

“It’s a testament of what you survived, just like all the others. It tells a story.” 

“A horrifying story of death and destruction,” Geralt said bitterly.

The hand squeezed once, and Jaskier’s eyes were serious and very blue in the cold morning light, “A witcher story, the most interesting I have ever met.” 

* 

“You’re a fool, you know that?” he told Jaskier once he was clean and fed and he could think clearly again. 

“I knew you wouldn’t turn,” the bard said with a wink.

“You didn’t know shit, you’re reckless.”

“That’s what you like about me.” 

Jaskier’s tone was playful, but Geralt mulled the remark over, considering it. Jaskier was surprisingly capable, now more than ever, but he was also a mess, not recognizing danger when it looked him in the eye. But then again, the witcher did sort of like it. That fearless and foolish approach to life and anything it could throw his way.

He looped his good arm around Jaskier’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. The position was a little awkward, but the bard didn’t complain. He missed physical contact and human conversation, Geralt could tell. 

He hugged him tighter and whispered, thinking out loud, “We’ll go north. Things might not be as bad there.” 

“To Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier asked, curious, but also a tiny bit muffled by the dirty shirt he had buried his face in.

He had never been there – too dangerous a trip, too boring a destination for such a lively bard. But now that death was all around them, it might not be such a bad idea.

“Maybe, if we can reach the pass before snowfalls get too heavy.” 

“Do you think your brothers will be there?” There was no apprehension or wariness in his question, only unabridged eagerness to know more.

It suddenly dawned on Geralt that he hadn’t even wondered about how the other wolves were faring. Worrying about others just wasn’t a witcher thing to do – until now. Jaskier wasn’t worrying about the others though, and certainly not about him; he just blindly believed him to be strong enough to survive no matter what. It was stupid and naive, but it also felt terribly pleasant. To know that someone cared.

“I hope so,” he said after a while, because he did. He hoped they were alright.

“Then that’s a plan,” Jaskier concluded, optimistic as ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: this fic will have a target audience of one (1) but damn that person (me) will be happy to read it :')


End file.
